Apple ups the ante in Creative lawsuit

Apple has raised the heat in its patent infringement countersuit against
Creative, upping
the total number of patents it claims Creative violates from four to
seven. The countersuit is in response to an earlier infringement lawsuit and injunction
request filed by Creative, where the company accused Apple of
violating a patent that covers hierarchical sorting of music in handheld
players. TechWeb says the Apple patents Creative is alleged to violate
are numbers 5,341,293,
5,479,602,
5,586,237,
5,799,280,
5,898,434,
6,047,342,
and 6,731,312.
All but one of these patents were filed in the 1990s—long before
Creative's Zen patent—and include filings for a programmable user
interface, content-based icons, an audio recording and display
interface, and a media player interface. A patent strategist for
Greenberg Traurig LLC told TechWeb Apple generally didn't file patent
lawsuits, and that this legal attack was mainly a "defensive response"
to pressure Creative into dropping its charges.